FROM PITS TO THRONE: A Crown Forged In Chains

Chapter 4: Blood and Survival

By dawn the Fievian was brought into the fighting pit.

Laim heard the gates grind open long before he saw the man. The corridor filled with the low rumble of the crowd filtering into the stands. Merchants in silk robes, nobles with painted faces, common folk who had saved coppers for weeks to watch men die. The air carried the sharp tang of oiled steel and the sweeter rot of blood already soaked into the sand.

Garrick crouched beside Laim’s cell bars, wrapping fresh cloth around his hands.

“Listen closely,” the old fighter muttered. “Vorus the Fievian is a three year undefeated champion. He fights with a curved falx that can take a head clean off. Likes to feint high, then hook low for the legs. Stay inside his reach or outside it. Never in the middle.”

Laim flexed his fingers, feeling the pull of half-healed scabs across his knuckles. “Shield?”

Garrick snorted. “Jarrett’s feeling generous. Small buckler and a short sword. Real steel this time one with a proper edge. The crowd wants blood, not play-acting.”

A guard banged on the bars. “Up, pretty boy. Your dance awaits.”

They marched him out into the blinding circle of the pit. The morning sun glared off the sand; heat shimmered already. Across the arena, the opposite gate rose. Vorus stepped through to a thunderous roar.

He was shorter than Krag but twice as broad, arms corded with muscle, skin oiled until it gleamed. A bronze helm shaped like a snarling wolf covered his face, leaving only dark eyes visible. In his right hand he carried the long, inward-curving falx; in his left, a net weighted with lead balls.

Laim’s weapons felt pitiful by comparison: a sword no longer than his forearm and a buckler barely large enough to cover his heart. It was clear he isn’t meant to win that fight.

Jarrett rose in his shaded box with arms spread wide. “Citizens of Korthos! Today, fresh meat from across the sea Laim the Unbroken faces our champion, Vorus of Fievia! To the death!”

The crowd erupted.

Laim’s stomach tightened but he forced his breathing to steady. He thought of his father’s voice on the training yard “Fear is natural but panic is death.”

The horn sounded indicating it was time to begin.

Vorus moved first, his net spinning lazily at his side. He circled to test his opponent. Laim mirrored him, keeping the sun at his back. The Fievia feinted high exactly as Garrick had warned then whipped the falx low in a scything arc meant to hamstring.

Laim leaped back as the blade hissed through empty air, burying itself in the sand. Before Vorus could recover, Laim darted in with his buckler raised and the sword stabbing for the ribs. The net snapped out like a living thing. Lead weights cracked against his shoulder, numbing his arm as he staggered.

The crowd howled in approval.

Vorus pressed the advantage with his falx rising in an overhead blow that would split Laim to the breastbone. Laim threw himself sideways, rolling across the sand. The blade buried deep beside him. He sprang up inside the Fievian’s guard and rammed his buckler into the wolf helm causing Vorus to grunt in pain.

They broke apart, circling each other again.

Laim’s eyes stung from sweat. His left shoulder throbbed where the net had struck. He could feel the crowd’s hunger pressing down on him like a weight.

Vorus changed tactics. He began to herd Laim toward the wall, where maneuver room vanished. Each time Laim tried to break away, the net lashed out, forcing him back. A lead ball clipped his thigh enacting pain so hot and bright.

Vorus was committed to seeing victory that day like always.

He spun the net overhead and hurled it in a wide arc. Laim saw his chance. Instead of retreating, he lunged forward under the throw. The weighted cords sailed harmlessly over his head. He crashed into Vorus with his sword thrusting up under the bronze cuirass.

The blade slid between ribs.

Vorus roar carried more shock than pain. His falx came down in a desperate chop. Laim twisted making the curved blade sheared across his left side, parting flesh in a line of fire and blood soaked his hip instantly.

But the short sword was buried to its hilt.

Vorus staggered back, trying to pull free. Laim held on to his weapon, twisting the blade viciously. The Fievian dropped his falx, his hands clawing for Laim’s throat. Then Laim let go of the sword and drove his buckler edge into the exposed neck twice.

Vorus sank to his knees, blood bubbling from his mouth behind the helm. The crowd’s roar became a stunned hush.

Laim stepped back, his chest felt heavy. His side burned with every breath as he looked up at Jarrett’s box.

The arena master was on his feet, eyes wide with something between fury and delight.

Then the silence broke. Cheers crashed over Laim like a wave. “Laim! Laim! Laim!”

Guards rushed in, seizing his arms. As they dragged him toward the gate, he saw Vorus topple face-first into the sand, the sword still protruding from his back.

Back in the cells, Garrick waited with needle and thread.

“Sit,” the old man ordered. “Deep cut, but clean. You’ll live.”

Laim collapsed onto the straw. The pain hit him fully now that the fight-lust had ebbed. Garrick poured raw wine over the wound while Laim hissed through clenched teeth.

“You mad fool,” Garrick muttered as he stitched. “Diving inside a Fievian’s reach. Should’ve worn you down, you should have bled him slow.”

“Would’ve taken hours,” Laim rasped. “Crowd would’ve turned. Jarrett would’ve sent in dogs to finish it.”

Garrick paused, needle poised. “You’re learning the pit faster than most. That’s both good and bad.”

He tied off the thread and smeared honey over the stitches to ward off festering.

“Jarrett’s in a mood,” he continued. “Vorus was his biggest draw. You just cost him a fortune in future bets. But you made him three fortunes today. He’ll want to keep you alive now, as least for a while.”

Laim leaned his head against the wall. “How long is a while?”

“Till someone better comes along. Or till the gold from your quiet death looks sweeter.”

That night, Jarrett himself visited the cells.

He stood outside Laim’s bars, flanked by two guards with a goblet of wine in hand.

“You surprise me, boy,” he said pleasantly. “I thought Vorus would carve you into stew. Instead you gut him like a fish. The city’s talking of nothing else.”

Laim met his gaze without speaking.

Jarrett sipped his wine. “I’ve decided to invest in you. Better food. A cell with a window. A woman once a week if you keep winning. All you need to do is bleed prettily and die on my schedule and not someone else’s.”

Laim’s voice was hoarse. “And my freedom?”

Jarrett laughed softly. “Freedom is for citizens, not pit dogs. But keep the crowd happy, and perhaps we’ll discuss a longer leash.”

He turned to leave, then paused. “One more thing, your former owners sent word. They’re…displeased you still breathe. They’ve doubled the bounty.”

Laim’s blood ran cold. Robert’s reach extended even here.

Jarrett smiled over his shoulder. “Sleep well, champion.”

The days blurred into weeks.

Fights came faster now, sometimes three a week. Jarrett paired him against every horror he could buy or borrow.

A pair of chained twin berserkers from the northern ice.

A blind swordsman whose hearing was unnaturally keen.

A lithe assassin from the Shadow Isles who fought with poisoned needles hidden in her hair.

A pride of three starved lions loosed together.

Each time Laim survived, but each time he paid in flesh and blood.

Scars mapped his body like roads on a chart; the falx cut along his ribs, a lion’s claw across his back, a berserker’s axe bite on his left thigh that never quite healed right. He learned to fight through pain, to use it as fuel.

Garrick taught him more than fighting. He taught him the politics of the pit.

“Jarrett’s not the only power here,” the old man said one evening, sharing a stolen flask of brandy. “There’s the Lanista Guild, they train fighters for all the arenas. There’s the Bookmakers’ Circle, they set odds and skim fortunes. And there’s the nobles who sponsor favorites. Win the right patrons and even Jarrett can’t touch you easily.”

Laim filed it away, to be remembered when the time comes.

He began to watch the boxes during fights. A lady in emerald silk who wagered heavily on him. A fat merchant who cheered loudest when he bled. A quiet man in gray robes who never cheered at all, but whose eyes followed every move.

After a particularly brutal victory over a spear-wielding giant from the eastern steppes, the quiet man sent a note down with a guard.

For Laim the Unbroken. Meet me at the Fountain of Dolphins, midnight, three days hence. Come alone.

Garrick read it and whistled low. “That’s Lord Ermin Rein’s seal a Politician. Ambitious as a cat in a fish market. I’m sure he wants something from you or thinks you can get him something.”

Laim folded the note carefully. “Or wants me dead for someone else.”

“Possible,” Garrick admitted. “But Rein’s not known for quiet killings. He plays longer games.”

Three nights later, under a sliver moon, Laim slipped out during the changing of the guards with the help of a trick Garrick had taught him using a bent spoon and patience. He met the gray-robed man at the fountain.

Lord Ermin Rein was younger than Laim had expected, early forities, lean, with sharp features and intelligent eyes. He dismissed his single bodyguard with a gesture.

“You fight like a man with purpose,” Ermin said without preamble. “Not just survival. But vengeance.”

Laim remained silent.

Ermin smiled faintly. “I collect useful men. One day Jarrett may sell you. When he does, remember my name.”

He pressed a small silver token into Laim’s hand, an owl stamped on one side, a crown on the other then he vanished into the shadows.

Laim returned to the cells before dawn with the token hidden in his mouth.

Weeks turned to months.

The name “Laim” echoed throughout Korthos taverns and noble halls. Songs were sung, crude ones about the foreign slave who would not die.

But in the quiet between fights, alone on his straw pallet, the prince remembered who he truly was.

Liam Walton. Heir to Miraolden.

And every drop of blood he spilled in the sand was practice for the day he would spill Robert Hawks’.

Far away, in Preliand and Nidus, his sisters endured their own trials, unaware that across the sea their brother was forging himself into a weapon.